The present invention relates generally to unifying access to a user""s e-mail box and voice mailbox, and particularly to a system and method for storing voice messages in an e-mail box and synchronizing the voice mailbox and the e-mail box to accurately reflect the state of each voice message.
For over a decade voice mail systems have facilitated communications between people. Whether for business or for pleasure the advantages of voice mail systems are numerous and have been well documented. Voice mail systems are highly popular and to this end many people rely on this technology to accomplish their day to day tasks. Another common means for communications is e-mail. Even though e-mail systems predate voice mail systems, their potential for communicating was left largely unnoticed outside of academia. However, with the proliferation of the web browser, businesses and personal use of e-mail systems have become commonplace. Its popularity has transcended various cultures, age groups, and uses. For many it is the preferred means of communications.
Voice mail systems are developed by various different vendors. Most vendors have developed their own distinct system. Thus, different vendors may offer different features and implement their systems differently. A voice mailbox is usually associated with a phone number. Whoever xe2x80x9cownsxe2x80x9d the phone line chooses which type of voice mail system they wish to use. For example, phone companies may offer voice mail to their residential customers using a particular system, whereas a business with its own telecommunications equipment may use a distinct voice mail system for its employees. Different systems may use incompatible standards to implement their system. Even if companies use the same standards, the systems usually operate independently of each other. Thus, a user of one voice mail system may not access another voice mail system.
Conversely, e-mail systems have been developed on a set of public standard protocols. Vendors may produce different systems with different features, but e-mail systems can send messages to other e-mail systems. Those e-mail systems will be able to correctly interpret its destination and the message because of the use of a common protocol. Thus, e-mail users can effortlessly communicate with e-mail users on other systems.
Even though voice and data were originally different technologies, they are moving closer and closer together. Voice traffic can be carried over the Internet and data can be sent over phone lines. This growing convergence is evident by the attempts to unify voice mail messages and e-mail messages. Merging these two technologies would simplify the management of information and save people time. It is not unknown in the art to unify e-mail and voice mail systems. This idea would allow users of both technologies to retrieve their voice messages through their email systems. It would save time by allowing access to information in both systems through access of one system. But by allowing the user to access both sets of information via one system, issues immediately arise of synchronizing the systems to avoid redundancy. For example, once a voice mail message is deleted in the e-mail system, it should also be deleted in the voice mail system. Otherwise, the user may be confused when reviewing messages in the voice mail system as to whether the message is a new message or the one previously deleted by the user. In addition, having to explicitly delete each voice mail message twice makes the use of such systems unduly tedious.
Prior solutions address this problem in several ways. One solution is to generate a detailed database for all the messages on both systems. Each message in the database contains two ID""s, one for the voice message and one for the e-mail message. Whenever a change is made in one of the systems, the database must be updated. The database ensures that each system contains current information about the status of each voice message. Although this implementation allows the user to access voice mail messages via an e-mail system, it is more complex than it might initially appear. First, most voice mail servers do not include a database management system, and thus database and search procedures must be added to the voice mail system in order to implement this solution. Second, since voice mail systems are inherently proprietary, implementing the invention requires expensive proprietary programming, both for the database as well as for the interactions between the voice mail system and the e-mail system.
This solution may require tracking all e-mail messages instead of only the ones intended to be used for both systems. The maximum number of voice messages stored per user is typically less than a hundred, while there is typically no set maximum number of e-mail messages stored per user and, in fact, many users keep hundreds or thousands of e-mail messages in their e-mail box. As a result, the database in the hypothetical system needs to keep track of a potentially much larger set of messages than just the voice mail messages, requiring a more robust and thus more complex and more expensive database management system than one that only had to track the ID""s and status of voice mail messages.
Another potential solution is to use a single system to store all of the information for both the e-mail system and the voice mail system. This would eliminate any synchronization problems. However, this would require replacing existing e-mail and voice mail systems with a single system. It is unknown if this option is technically feasible, and it does not solve the problem for those users who wish to keep their current systems. For instance, a user may have a long-standing e-mail address, known to the user""s personal and/or business acquaintances, that he or she is reluctant to change, or the xe2x80x9cuserxe2x80x9d may be a business with a large investment in a particular voice mail system and/or e-mail system.
In summary, the present invention is a system and method that synchronizes voice messages stored in both a user""s voice mailbox in a voice mail system and an e-mail box in an e-mail system distinct from the voice mail system, using standard e-mail protocols. Each user of the voice mail system may use a distinct e-mail system from the other users. The present invention does not require drastic changes to existing e-mail or voice mail systems. Nor does it require the voice mail server to implement a database for keeping track of the ID""s and status of voice mail messages stored in the e-mail system. Instead, the present invention uses functionality already built into standard e-mail systems by relying on standard Internet protocols such as IMAP.
When a voice message is stored in a user""s voice mailbox in the voice mail system, a corresponding e-mail message is sent to and stored in an e-mail system with the voice message located in an attachment to the e-mail message. The invention stores certain information in a predefined portion of the email message, preferably the header. By looking at this information, the invention can easily determine which e-mail messages in the user""s e-mail box are also associated with the voice mail system. At predetermined times, the invention synchronizes the user""s voice mailbox and e-mail box in the two systems. The present invention does not use a database in the voice mail system to store information about which e-mail messages in the user""s e-mail box correspond to voice mail messages in the voice mail system, and further the voice mail system does not retrieve and analyze all the e-mail messages in the user""s e-mail box to determine which correspond to the voice mail messages. Rather, the voice mail system uses standard e-mail protocols to retrieve the predefined portion of the e-mail messages sent by the voice mail system, analyzes the retrieved information to determine what updates need to be performed to synchronize the information contained in the two systems, and then performs the synchronization, deleting messages and changing the status of messages as needed.
The present invention does not require implementing a new voice mail or e-mail system because it works with existing systems. It is efficient because it does not require any additional databases to be implemented in the voice mail system or elsewhere, and because during synchronization it only retrieves e-mail messages with a voice mail counterpart. Further, because the present invention is based in part on standard e-mail protocols, it should work with any existing e-mail system using one of these standards.
The present invention can include several useful features. For instance, the present invention may be configured to inform a user of the e-mail system whether or not a voice message originated from the user""s voice mail system. Also, when a user""s voice mailbox is full, the present invention may be configured to accept additional xe2x80x9coverflowxe2x80x9d voice mail messages and to route the overflow voice mail messages to the e-mail system, providing valuable information to the user. It would let the user know that the user""s voice mailbox is full, provide the content of the overflow voice mail messages, and let the user know that these messages are only located on the e-mail system. The present invention may be further configured to enable a user to be able to delete a message from the voice mail system but forward a copy to the user""s e-mail box in an e-mail system. When the present invention is configured to provide these features, the predetermined information stored in the e-mail messages would distinguish these types of messages as overflow and forward and delete messages so that the synchronization process does not mistakenly delete them.